


Closed Doors, Closed Minds

by gross_batpanda



Series: Chicagoland [14]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda, Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1990s, Angst, Chicago (City), College, Feelings, M/M, there will be blood - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-05 00:14:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11001933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gross_batpanda/pseuds/gross_batpanda
Summary: Ben asks Alex to come back for break. It probably won't end well for anyone involved.Title from a Crimpshrine song.





	Closed Doors, Closed Minds

“You going anywhere for break?” John asks as they make their way from Alex’s dorm to the lecture hall, pausing to flash his orthodontist-perfected smile at every cute sophomore they pass on the way. He’s running out of girls at this rate, but the seniors had all been picked over, and the juniors were onto him. Unlike Alex, John seemed to be all right at steering clear of needy teenagers. Well, really just the one, and he hadn’t seen him since the summer.

Ben writes letters. Alex never asked him to write, certainly never expected him to. Occasionally he dashes off a postcard — dumb touristy ones that you can get ten for a dollar in souvenir shops — _don’t forget to study for the SATs, no I’m not coming back for Christmas_ — but the letters from Ben keep coming like a flood. He reads them, stuffs them in a dresser drawer, and tries not to think about them. Or about Ben.

Like it matters. He could recite them all by heart, transcribe the contents of each into the grid notebooks he carries with him, one for each class.

_G. hasn’t been around as much lately. He hasn’t answered the phone, either. He’s been travelling, is what Billy said. East Coast, I think. Did he come to New York? Have you seen him?_

_My 7” collection is growing, but my mom thinks I shouldn’t take it to college with me, unless I go to Elmhurst, or maybe Beloit. I can’t see why you’d live in the sticks in Wisconsin. I don’t think there’s even a record store there. If we can drive we can take it, but if I go to the coast and we have to ship stuff she said it would cost too much. Apparently you have to pack records really carefully? They’re fragile, like fine china, is what the guy at the UPS store told her._

_I have to decide soon where I’m going, and I think I want to go out west. You went to New York, and everyone I know is staying here, so maybe I should do something different, just to see what it’s like. Nobody I know has ever moved to Oregon before._

_Alex, I can’t believe it’s really happening. I know it’s not cool to be excited, but I’m so fucking excited. I can’t wait to not live here anymore. I can’t wait to get out of Oak Park. I hate the suburbs so much._

_They put down the deposit. Dad isn’t happy about it, but my mom says not to worry about him. She’s been really nice about everything lately, especially since I’ve been home so much more. The club is still good; there was a Pansy Division show last week that was awesome. I bought the record and their t-shirt. The crowd was kind of different for that one. Lots of people I hadn’t seen before. It was kinda cool. George wasn’t there at all. I think Billy booked them? He’s been doing that a lot more lately._

_I’m not taking my records. My mom got a quote to have them shipped and my dad said absolutely not so I guess they’re staying here. I suppose I could sell them. I need to buy a computer, I guess, though the packet they sent me talks about the labs that I can use there. A lot of people don’t have computers, which makes me feel better about not having one. I’d rather keep the records. I’ve started putting everything I can onto cassette but it’s taking forever. I do that while I study for the AP exams._

_I listen to your mixtapes all the time. G. isn’t a fan of the Buzzcocks, but I like them a lot. I got the album that song is from, it’s really good. It got me thinking. Have you ever been in love?_

Their usual seats in the lecture hall are occupied, but John manages to convince the girls in them to move over with yet another easily dispatched grin. He flings himself into the hard-backed wooden seat and slaps his notebook down, stretching out his legs, and folding his arms across his chest as if he’s preparing for a fistfight rather than fifty minutes about comparative economics. Alex settles into the chair next to him and waits for John to stop kicking the seat in front of him before he speaks.

“I wasn’t planning on it,” he says. All around them, other students are discussing their plans loudly. It reads like a rich-kid checklist: Tahoe, Vail, Paris, Cabo. John is headed down south to see his family. There’s a wedding he’s being forced to attend, and he’s none too pleased about it. Friends of the family who probably own half of Charleston; John’s family, of course, owns the other half. As for Alex, there’s nothing to tempt him back to the Midwest, save for a handful of friends and a whole shitload of history. Manhattan will be fine for the week. He’ll have to find a place to crash, though, since the dorms will be closed. Maybe he can sleep in the library, coffee shop it at night. Gil’s been cagey about him staying over too late. Alex thinks he might be seeing someone respectable.

Spring break gets solved for him a few days later. He’s in the common room, working on his problem set — goddamn regression models are killing him, he’s about to march over to the registrar and change his major to Art History because at least there’s no goddamned math in that — when the communal floor phone rings.

It startles him enough that he drops his mechanical pencil onto the linoleum, and he’s scrabbling around for that long enough that the phone stops ringing. Good, he really didn’t want to answer it anyways. There’s a kid who lives at the end of the hall who he’s pretty sure deals coke, and sketchy assholes are always calling to try and track him down.

Right, regression models. He turns back to the textbook and reads over the words once more.

_The hypothesized relationship between education and earnings may be written_

_I = α + βE + ε_

_where α = a constant amount (what one earns with zero education);_   
_β = the effect in dollars of an additional year of schooling on income, hypothesized to be positive; and ε = the “noise” term reflecting other factors that influence earnings._

_The variable I is termed the “dependent” or “endogenous” variable; E is termed the “independent,” “explanatory,” or “exogenous” variable; α is the “constant term” and β the “coefficient” of the variable E. Remember what is observable and what is not._

“Observable,” he says out loud to himself. What’s unobservable here? Parameters maybe. How is endoganous even a fucking word? Jesus, his head hurts. When he’s done with this stupid thing he’s getting a drink. Not a beer either, a real drink. Gin. All the gin. So much fucking gin.

When the phone rings a second time he practically jumps up to answer it. Even talking to the druggie at the end of the hall is preferable to figuring out the variables in that stupid equation.

“Hello?” he says, with far too much enthusiasm to spare for a random.

There’s a shuffle on the other end of the line, some heavy breathing. And then a voice he hasn’t heard in a long-ass time. “Can I speak to Alex, please? I’m pretty sure he lives there, at least I think he does? Hamilton’s his last name.”

He’s surprised. Ben hates talking on the phone. Sure, he’ll pour his heart out in a letter, full of sentiment that’s so simple it verges on poetry, but he’s a reluctant conversationalist even in person. Something must have happened to make him call.

George, it’s gotta be George.

Either that or drugs, and Ben’s too smart to touch that shit. Isn’t he? Or he could be sick. Fuck knows what he’s been up to, if he’s using protection.

_Shit._

“Ben,” he says quickly, as these thoughts cascade over him, “Ben, it’s me. It’s Alex.”

“Oh,” Ben replies, sounding pretty much equally surprised to have reached him on the first try. Long distance has distorted his voice, made it tinnier, deeper as it travels the fiber optics from the Great Lakes to the coast. “Oh, well. Hey.”

“Hey.” Alex waits a second, fully expecting for Ben to start sniveling on the other end of the line, to spill whatever made him pick up the phone in the first place. He's weird like that. Why does he cry so much? Alex can’t even remember the last time he cried. When his mom died, sure, and he had to go into care, but after that? Foster kids don’t get to stay if they cry. When Ben doesn’t respond, he prompts him. “You called me?”

“Yeah,” Ben answers. There’s a pregnant pause, like he might be about to say something, but the call lapses once more into silence. Great.

“So what’s up?”Alex asks, tucking the phone under his chin and leaning up against the glossy white-painted wall. It looks like an institution, with the white paint over concrete bricks. You’d think Columbia could do better, but no. The richer the school the shittier the facilities. Maybe he’ll write a letter. No, a letter to the student paper. And send it to the radio station. 

“You there?” he says into the radio silence of the telephone. Christ, what happened? Something must have pushed him to make the call. If he asks outright Ben might get spooked. Jesus, the old man really did a fucking number on this kid.

He’s chewing over the extent of that damage, figuring it could still be mitigated when the thought strikes him — won’t Ben’s parents notice the long-distance charges? Should they even be having this phone call?

“I got a phone card,” Ben tells him, as if reading his mind from afar. His shoulders relax to hear it.

“That’s good then,” he answers. Twenty-nine cents a minute, but as long as he's not paying. “So, what’s new? How’s school?”

“It’s fine.” Taciturn, quiet. God, this fucking kid. He’s the one who picked up the phone, and yet Alex has to do all the damn work. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“I can tell,” he teases, making sure to let the affection radiate over the distance. It can be hard to tell on the phone if someone’s joking, and Alex is known for being a wise-ass. “You figured out college yet? Sounded like you were gunning for the west coast." 

“Not yet,” Ben says, his voice slow in Alex’s ear. “I kinda wanted to talk to you about that.”

“About college?” The dark green plastic sticks to his skin, so he switches to the other side.

Ben’s breathing travels down the line. Alex closes his eyes and tries to hold himself together. This fucking kid. He hadn’t gone back for winter break, despite the fact that Mrs. Schuyler had offered to put him up. He’d have liked to see Liz, catch a show or two, make her pay for Lou Malnatti’s. But if he goes back then he’s gonna feel obligated to call, to hang out. To fuck Ben, or let Ben blow him, while he knows he’s still on George’s leash. That thought makes him feel prickly beneath the collar. Christ, how old is he now? Shouldn’t George be fucking done with him, past the sell-by date and all that?

“You there?” he asks, feeling around his pocket for his cigarettes. “College, I’m listening.”

“That, and other things.” Well, that’s helpful. Fine, he’ll bite. Alex lights up, switches the receiver back to his other ear. “What other things?”

“I was thinking...” Ben trails off, and Alex takes a deep drag, curses internally.

His political economy class is only fifty minutes, but it might as well be ten hours for as much as he gets out of it. There’s a lecture, some keywords written on the whiteboard. People raise their hands and ask questions, but the prof likes to do cold calls because he trained in law.

 _Can you come home?_ Ben’s sweet voice, asking outright. He should say no. He really needs to say no. He’s got two internships lined up for the summer, and he needs to get a jump on his coursework so he can pick up more hours at the library after break. The week without being able to work fucks his finances up big time. And there’s the thing with George, unavoidable at this point.

Alex is on his way up and out. He’s got a haircut, he’s playing fucking nice. He’s gone so far as to call his professors _Sir_ if it gets him a glowing letter of recommendation. Back there what is he? An overgrown street rat that has to scurry away when shit gets too hot to handle. Here he can be somebody: Alex — no, fuck it, Alexander Hamilton — and who cares if he’s been in the system? _Home_ Ben had said, like that ever meant a goddamn thing to him besides a couch, a floor, the backseat of someone’s parents’ car.

 _I don’t know,_ he’d said, stalling for time, _let me see what my work schedule looks like_

‘Mr. Hamilton?’ says the professor, his blue marker poised above the whiteboard, “Can you elucidate on what Hobbes means by ‘the condition of man as war of everyone against everyone?’

Alex squints up his eyes, shakes his head. Clears thoughts of Ben, wasting away in the Chicago suburbs from his mind. Everyone is waiting for him to answer. So Alex does what he does best. He talks.


End file.
